I have been using this recipe to make homemade wine for a couple of months now, and although i am pleased with this cheap and easy way to make wine i have been trying to make it a little stronger and don’t know how.
Recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Homemade-Wine/Detail.aspx
For those unfamiliar with the recipe, it calls for a 12oz juice concentrate, 4 cups sugar, yeast, and water. Now i realize the combination of yeast, sugar and the different enzymes in the concentrate is what makes the alcohol, so would doubling the amount of sugar, yeast and concentrate make a stronger wine?
Or could you increase the amount in fractions, like add an extra 2 cups sugar, and 6oz of concentrate?
I was thinking since there is less water it would be less watered down, and there would be a larger combination of sugar, yeast and concentrate to create more alcohol.
What im getting at basically–
Is there anyway to make this homemade wine have a higher alcohol content?
I don’t know much about homemade wine but I did find this web site for you. It reads as if letting the wine age has nothing to do with increasing its alcohol content. The problem lies in keeping the fermentation process of the yeast going for a longer period of time (with the aid of ingredients found at wine stores or on the web). A sample from this site: "Apart from the warmth of your must, you might also like to add yeast nutrients – (found in most wine supply shops and online retailers) – to the mix. These nutrients help the yeast to keep reproducing, increasing the alcohol content, until it’s time has come."
I also found this:
The way to determine if sugar is required is by testing the must with a hydrometer.
The hydrometer has a scale on it that is called "Potential Alcohol."
It is simply a scale of percentages–usually from 0 to 20–that
tells you how much alcohol can be made with the sugars that are
currently in the must.
For example, if you put the hydrometer in the must and get a
reading of 5 percent, this means that the must currently has
enough sugars to produce 5 percent worth of alcohol.
Once you know where you are at, the next step is to figure out
where you want to be. To take our previous example further, if
you know that you are currently at a potential alcohol level of 5
percent and what to be at 12 percent then you need to add and
dissolve sugar into the must until the hydrometer reads 12 on the
Potential Alcohol scale.
NOTE: To help you out, as a general rule-of-thumb, for every
pound of sugar you add to a 5 gallon batch you will increase the
potential alcohol level by 1 percent. This is not exact, but very
close and will save you a lot of time in making this adjustment.
It is recommended that you do not shoot for alcohol levels higher
than 13 percent. Quite often wine yeast will not to be able to
achieve these higher alcohol levels. The result being a massive
amount of left-over sugar in the finished wine making it too
sweet for any ones taste.
It is also recommended that you shoot for alcohol levels higher
than 9 percent as levels lower than this may fail to inhibit the
growth of molds and other micro-organisms in the wine while it is
being stored.
This is how I made plum wine from scratch using 5 gallon demijohns.
Ingredients for Plum Syrup & Plum Wine
How to add yeast to the mixture when making wine; learn more about wine in this free instructional video.
How to get the basic ingredients needed to make wine; learn more about wine in this free instructional video.